21 Polo Horses Die | Update: Pharmacy Wrongly Prepped Horses Meds

UPDATE:

April 25, 2009
Read full story: www.newsday.com

WELLINGTON - The U.S. Polo Association Board of Governors met Saturday in Palm Beach County and set up a committee to examine what safeguards exist for polo horses and whether the sport needs a prohibited substance policy.

The committee will review the results of the investigation into the death of 21 polo horses and develop policies to ensure the safety of polo horses, a press release said.

Executive Director Peter Rizzo said in the release that the committee will also examine policies from other equestrian organizations.

"The USPA has a tradition of promoting equine safety," Rizzo said.
The USPA has a committee called the Equine Welfare Committee, but it does not have any rules about care for horses outside of actual matches.

Equine legal expert Don Dufresne said the USPA is being proactive in addressing the need for such a policy.

"They are recognizing that the safety of the horse is of utmost concern," he said.

He said it would probably take a great deal of time and thought for the association to formulate a policy that works for polo horses.

Quoting anonymous sources, La Nacion, newspaper of Argentina, reported Friday that the 21 Lechuza Caracas team horses scheduled to play in Sunday's polo match were injected with a lethal dose – 10 times the intended amount – of selenium, a trace mineral that is poisonous to horses in high doses. The newspaper reported that 0.5 mg/ml was prescribed but the compound actually contained 5 mg/ml.

Selenium is essential to good health but required only in small amounts, according to the National Institutes of Health. It is found in soil, some meats and seafood.

Franck's Pharmacy, in Ocala, has acknowledged "that a strength of an ingredient in the medication was incorrect" but would not provide any additional information.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine and the Federal Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine declined comment Friday, citing the pending investigation.

Officials investigating the deaths said Thursday that they believed they have identified the chemical that caused the deaths but would not publicly identify it Friday, again citing the continuing investigation.

It's unclear at this point how the error occurred. The identity of the prescribing veterinarian has not been confirmed and the prescription has not been made public.

In a written statement Thursday, the Lechuza team said a Florida-licensed veterinarian wrote a prescription for a compounded substitute vitamin supplement containing vitamin B, potassium, magnesium and selenium: "Only the horses treated with the compound became sick and died within 3 hours of treatment. The horses that were not treated remain healthy and normal."

The pharmacy's statement said that "on an order from a veterinarian, Franck's Pharmacy prepared medication that was used to treat the 21 horses."

But some suggested Friday the tragedy could have been averted if the injectable vitamin compound had been sent to a third party lab before dispensing it. The compound was a substitute for Biodyl, the team said, a vitamin-mineral mix that isn't approved for use in the United States.

UPDATE: Thursday April 23, 2009

Florida pharmacy says it wrongly prepped horse meds before match

(CNN) -- A veterinary pharmacy in Florida acknowledged Thursday that it incorrectly prepared medication used to treat 21 horses who all died around the time of an international polo match last weekend.

The deaths of the ponies, witnessed in full view by spectators Sunday in a dramatic scene where horses collapsed one after another, have shaken the prestigious polo tournament at the marquee International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington, Florida.

An internal investigation by Franck's Pharmacy in Ocala, Florida, "concluded that the strength of an ingredient in the medication was incorrect. We will cooperate fully with the authorities as they continue their investigations," the company said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon.

"We extend our most sincere condolences to the horses' owners, the Lechuza Polo team and the members of the United States Polo Association. We share their grief and sadness," the pharmacy's chief operations officer, Jennifer Beckett, said in the statement.

A memorial ceremony for the horses is scheduled for Thursday at the U.S. Open Polo Championship, where officials hope to resume play after matches were postponed by rain Wednesday. The memorial service will include a brief speech and a wreath-laying on the field.

The pharmacy said it prepared medication for the horses on orders from a veterinarian.

"On an order from a veterinarian, Franck's Pharmacy prepared medication that was used to treat the 21 horses on the Lechuza Polo team," Beckett said. "As soon as we learned of the tragic incident, we conducted an internal investigation."

She said the report has been given to state authorities.

Lechuza also issued a statement to AP acknowledging that a Florida veterinarian wrote the prescription for the pharmacy to create a compound similar to Biodyl, a French-made supplement that includes vitamins and minerals and is not approved for use in the United States.

Liz Compton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, told CNN that the agency is awaiting toxicology results from the animals and could not comment on the pharmacy's disclosure.

"Obviously, we are going to follow any and every potential lead to get to the bottom of this," she said.

The horses were trained by Lechuza Polo, a Venezuela-based team. Its captain, Juan Martin Nero, told an Argentine newspaper earlier this week that he had "no doubts" vitamins administered to the animals were at fault.

"There were five horses that did not get the vitamin, and those were the only ones that survived," Nero said.

The horses collapsed one after another in front of spectators at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington, Florida, while being prepared for a tournament Sunday. Most were dead within an hour. Post-mortem examinations done by a University of Florida laboratory found significant hemorrhaging in several horses, but the findings did not single out a specific cause

I hope this wasn't intentional. They are blaming the vitamin shot today, April 22, 2009. We will see on Friday, April 24, 2009 the test results will be in. In any case, it is very sad.




Kissimmee, UF vets will try to determine what killed polo horses

Jeannette Rivera-Lyles | Sentinel Staff Writer
6:41 PM EDT, April 20, 2009

KISSIMMEE - Veterinarians in Kissimmee and Gainesville will try to determine what caused the death of 21 polo horses Sunday in Wellington.

Terrence McElroy, a spokesman with the Florida Department of Agriculture, Division of Animal Industry, said that 10 to 15 of the horses were sent to the division's main laboratory in Kissimmee.

At least 15 were sent to a similar facility at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

"It might take the better part of the week or even longer because of toxicology reports," McElroy said.

The necropsies are being performed by a team of veterinarians that have been working non-stop, McElroy said. One of them is Dr. Michael Short, a manager with the Bureau of Animal Disease Control for the agency.

Veterinarians at the Kissimmee lab were not available for comment.

Dr. John Harvey, assistant dean of the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, confirmed that the school had received 15 dead horses.

Harvey said the necropsy process is much like an autopsy: The body is checked for visible lesions before being dissected. Fluid and tissue samples are collected after a preparation process that takes two to three days.

"The suspicion here is toxins because of how sudden these animals died," Harvey said. "But since we don't know what we're looking for, there are literally thousands of things we can test for. It could be like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Harvey hopes that the clue needed by his team and the scientists in Kissimmee will come from the site where the horses were kept.



"We need to see what ties these animals together," Harvey said. "Did they eat the same thing? Did they receive any injections? We need to test those things. It could actually be easier to find what the horses were exposed to on the site than to find it on the animals."

Even performance-enhancement drugs are not the guaranteed culprit, he said.

"What people give horses for enhancement typically doesn't kill this way," said Harvey, whose facility tests for performance-enhancement drugs in several equestrian events, including the Kentucky Derby.

"People give horses caffeine, cocaine and many other things. We're set up to screen for those, but it might be of no value," he said.